The
recent advent of high quality, realistic 3D city models is creating new
possibilities for 3D visualisations and analyses to be realised. These models
present considerable potential to support urban planning processes and their
range of applications is rapidly expanding. The analysis of solar irradiance
and photovoltaic (PV) potential at an urban level is one field that can greatly
benefit from their use. This project demonstrates potential applications of a 3D
city model of Newcastle (UK) for solar panel locating and positioning. A 3D
geometric validation program is created to validate the city model’s surfaces
according to a defined set of axioms. A 3D photovoltaic (PV) assessment tool is
developed that can be used for multi-criteria analyses to locate suitable
surfaces for PV installations. This accounts for the 3D surface area, slope and
aspect of surfaces, as well as monthly and annual clear-sky solar irradiance
estimates and respective monthly and annual PV estimates.

Emma Lewison,
GIS and Data Manager at the Forestry Commission Analysing British wildlife
distributions using a mobile GIS app for data capture

The effect of
climate change and increasing human populations on ecosystems is an ongoing area
of study. With Smartphone ownership globally on the increase, an Android
Smartphone app was developed which enables users to collect wildlife sightings
data whilst on the move. The whole development process was completed using free
and open source programmes. The app allowed species, counts and user confidence
data to be collected whilst automatically creating the GPS data of the sighting
location. The captured data was then analysed within GIS. This Smartphone app
was then qualitatively compared to more traditional wildlife data capture
techniques.

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